The Future Tenses - Future Continuous - Teaching Ideas

Now here are some teaching ideas for the future continuous tense. Here, we have an activity where we'll be asking students to spontaneously make some excuses based upon some invitations. We can do this in pairs or small groups. The teacher will have cut these cards up and the students will place them into a pile, randomly picking up a card. So one student might pick this card up and say 'Would you like to play tennis with me tomorrow?' The other student will be challenged to come up with an excuse as quickly as possible, which might be 'No, I'm sorry I'll be working.' Then, we have the next student pick up the next card and we challenge an additional student to make an excuse. Here we have another teaching idea for the future continuous tense and this involves two students trying to plan a meeting between themselves sometime in the future. One student will have a planner such as this filled in with quite a few activities. Their partner will also have a planner filled in with activities on opposite days. The activity will be rigged so that only one day allows for both of them to meet together. The objective of the activity will be define that day. They'll need to do so by asking a series of questions. One may begin with 'Would you be available on the fourteenth?' Here this student would notice that they have a conference and we respond with 'I'm sorry, I'll be attending a conference.' He may return with another day and by asking these series of questions, eventually, they'll arrive at the day they can meet. As with any activity where certain members of the group are missing information and they have to compare and contrast their information, we have to make sure that the students aren't actually showing each other their diaries and they're having to ask each other questions and respond verbally.

Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the next.

The videos shown as part of this unit are a good summary of many of the concepts that have been explained up to now. They help visualize the theory of the units in a practical manner. These videos demonstrate a basic example of a Straight Arrow ESA lesson plan. However, there are many noticeable differences between the first and the second video. The first video is very useful as a reference to know what actions, habits or practices a teacher should not carry out during a class. The most defficient aspect of the first video is the teacher´s attitude which inspires discomfort and fear to participate among the students. The rapport and the teacher student relationship, regardless of the level or characteristics of the students, is essential in creating an environment where the students feel comfortable to participate, ask questions and not feel afraid to make mistakes. Another defficient aspect of the teacher´s methodology was his way of introducing and explaining concepts. His manner of speaking is fast, unclear and does not invite the students to get involved in the class. He doesn´t make use of gestures or material to aid in the student´s understanding. He just expects students to read his mind and does not show availability for posing questions. When beginning to watch the second video, one can immediately see a clear difference in the teacher´s interaction with the class. The first aspect one can notice is his smile which inspires a comfortable feeling and a harmonious environment. The teacher then proceeds to begin the Engage phase instead of jumping directly to the Study phase as in the first video. He gives the instructions to play a game which gets the students interested in a fun way. His use of gestures and mimics are very different and they aid considerably in the students´ ability to understand what he is explaining. The teacher then proceeds to do two different activities in the Study phase and speaks clearly and loudly when explaining the instructions. When it is time to share the answers to the worksheet questions, the teacher involves all of the students instead of focusing only on the stronger or the weaker students. He constantly uses the students´ names and from time to time, he randomly picks students in order to have them answer a question to make sure the concept is clear. One of the most noticeable differences between video 1 and video 2 is the explanation of the Activate where the teacher shows his own drawing of an imaginary animal. This is a great example of the use of visual material to explain instructions. The only recommendation that could be made to the teacher is insisting more on whether the students have any doubts or are in need of further explanation. He could have also been more clear in the definition of an imaginary animal.